Costco Wholesale Corporation

Nearest Address

801 S Pavilion Center Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89144

Telephone

(702) 352-2053

Website

www.costco.com

Business Description

Costco is a membership warehouse club that brings their members a wide selection of merchandise and services. It's considered the largest American membership-only warehouse. It is also the second largest retailer, Walmart being the first.

Costco has 729 warehouses in worldwide locations, and may increase within time. In the year of 2016, Costco had 85 million members shopping in their warehouses.

Year Founded

Costco's first location opened in 1976 under the name of "The Prime Club." It was in a converted airplane hangar in San Diego.

The first Costco warehouse location opened in Seattle in 1983.

History

In this company's first location of the Price Club, it originally only served small business members, selling supplies and wholesale items. It was believed that it could achieve much more by serving non-business members. Jim Sinegal, the executive vice-president of merchandise, distribution, and marketing, helped make this change and lead to the growth of their first warehouse club in Seattle, Washington with Jeff Brotman.

Price Club and Costco Wholesale merged together in 1993, creating it as one to become the most successful warehouse club.

Risks

Less people are shopping in stores over time. People are moving to online shopping, where Costco has a very limited online business. They've dealt with the risk of decline in the amount of money being spent in their warehouses.

Costco's main competitors in the retail market would be Walmart and Target with close numbers in their stocks.

Successes

Costco is the first company to grow from zero to $3 billion dollars in sales in less than six years. In 1993, they had 206 locations that had $16 billion in annual sales.

Since 1997, the company grew worldwide and exceeded total sales of $64 billion dollars.